The initiatives on Tuesday’s ballot do not impose immediate changes in state prisons, where inmate labor continues to be used, but could spark legal challenges to the practice of forcing inmates to work under the threat of penalties or loss of privileges if they refuse work. But in Louisiana, voters rejected the proposed Amendment 7 that would have reworded the offending part of its constitution, in part because it could have legalized slavery again.

		Read more: US midterms mark a string of historic wins across the country 		
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			The US midterm elections are marking a series of historic victories across the country

Story continues below ad The Louisiana Constitution currently states: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, except in the latter case as punishment for crime.” The amendment would have changed it to: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, but this does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice.” The Democratic representative who first proposed the amendment, civil rights attorney Edmond Jordan, urged voters to reject the proposal. According to the Louisiana Illuminator, the amendment’s language was watered down during the legislative process and would still allow forced labor as part of a criminal sentence. The nonprofit Council for a Better Louisiana also urged voters to vote against the proposal and said Amendment 7 is “an example of why it’s so important to get the language right when constitutional amendments are presented to voters.”

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In Tennessee, all forms of slavery were abolished with 79.54 percent of the vote, according to ballot numbers from the secretary of state’s office. The Tennessee Constitution now reads, “Slavery and involuntary servitude forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit a prisoner from working when the prisoner has been duly convicted of a crime.” Current trend

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Alabama also removed its constitutional exemption for slavery and added a convict labor section, similar to Tennessee. Story continues below ad

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Vermont, which was the first state in the nation to outlaw slavery in 1777, still allowed involuntary servitude “for the payment of debts, indemnities, fines, costs, or the like.” Vermont has now replaced this clause in its constitution with “slavery and indentured servitude in every form prohibited.” The measure passed with 89 percent of the vote. In Oregon, the margins were closer, with 54 percent of the ballots voting in favor of repealing the slavery exemption. Over 600,000 people voted against the measure.

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The Oregon Constitution will now ban slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments and add a section authorizing “an Oregon court or probation or parole agency to order alternatives to incarceration of a convicted person as part of his sentence.” . The results were celebrated among anti-slavery advocates, including those pushing to further amend the national US Constitution, whose 13th Amendment allows slavery and involuntary servitude as a form of criminal punishment. It states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime of which the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or in any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Story continues below ad

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More than 150 years after enslaved Africans and their descendants were freed from slavery through the ratification of the 13th Amendment, the slavery exemption continues to allow the exploitation of low-cost incarcerated labor. Control of prison labor has existed for decades, but the loophole of the 13th Amendment especially encouraged former Confederate states after the Civil War to devise new ways to maintain the momentum of slavery. They used restrictive measures, known as “Black Codes” because they almost always targeted black people, to criminalize benign interactions, such as talking too loudly or not yielding on the sidewalk. Those targeted would end up being booked for petty misdeeds, effectively enslaving them again. Fast forward to today, when many incarcerated workers are making pennies on the dollar, which isn’t expected to change now that some of these proposals have succeeded. — with files from The Associated Press 3:02 US Midterm Elections: Control of Congress remains unclear Previous Video Next Video © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.